Sometimes Party Loyalty Demands Too Much

nevertrumpI spent almost the entire primary season warning that Donald Trump was dangerous and unworthy of the Republican nomination for president and that I could never support him, but the voters’ anger prevailed over their reason.

Once Trump secured enough delegates to guarantee him the nomination, I took a small step back and wrote that I would reluctantly give Trump my vote if – and only if – he met certain very basic and fundamental conditions of civilized conduct:

* He cannot ever again advocate or even tolerate violence by his campaign, staff, or supporters.

* He cannot ever again advocate violating the basic civil and human rights of Muslims or members of any other religion, race, or ethnicity.

* He cannot ever again show disrespect to women with any crude or misogynistic language or conduct.

* He cannot ever again attack his opponents or their families with crude and juvenile insults, unsupported innuendo, or defamatory claims.

* He cannot ever again insult his own supporters with claims that the only way to keep their attention and support is through buffoonish behavior and intelligence-insulting rhetoric.

* He cannot ever again advocate that the United States commit war crimes and atrocities such as targeting innocent women and children for murder in response to terrorist attacks.

* He cannot ever again advocate for socialized medicine, partial-birth abortion, restricting gun rights, funding Planned Parenthood, or abusing eminent domain powers as he has done throughout his life and career.

If Trump can transform himself into a respectable human being who can meet these basic conditions of human decency throughout the remainder of the race, then he can redeem himself enough to earn my vote.

I also said that “I seriously doubt that Trump will be able to meet the basic conditions set forth above, and so I seriously doubt that I’ll be voting for him in November.  I hope he proves me wrong.”

It’s been only 18 days since I wrote those words, and Trump has already proved me right.  Over the past couple of days, Trump has reaffirmed that he is a bigot and that he would use his powers as president in corrupt and dangerous ways.

Trump is being sued by a number of people who signed up for his Trump University program and allege that they were scammed out of thousands of dollars.  Trump has now launched a series of vicious assaults on presiding judge Gonzalo Curiel.  As quoted from Reason magazine by D.J. McGuire in an excellent Bearing Drift column, Trump said,

“It is a disgrace. It is a rigged system. I have a judge who is a hater of Donald trump. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel. And he is not doing the right thing.  [And Judge Curiel] happens to be, we believe, Mexican.”

You read that right.  He attacked the judge presiding over the fraud case against him on the basis of his ethnicity.  (Trump called Judge Curiel, who was born and raised in Indiana, a “Mexican” because he is of Mexican descent, which begs the question:  How much Mexican blood must a person have for Trump to deem him unworthy to be a judge?  Maybe he can develop something like the Mischling Test to make that call.)

As quoted from the Wall Street Journal in D.J.’s updated column, Trump says Judge Curiel should be removed from his case because “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.”  This argument, of course, assumes that every American of Mexican descent maintains more of a loyalty to Mexico than to his or her own country.  (This is a curious position coming from a candidate who also claims to have yuge support among Hispanic voters.) This argument mirrors the one made during World War II in support of placing Japanese-Americans in internment camps – an historical travesty that Trump has said he might have supported at the time.  It also mirrors one of the arguments made by Adolf Hitler against the Jews.

But if Trump’s open bigotry isn’t enough to disqualify him from the presidency, he also made a thinly-veiled threat that if he’s elected president he would use his presidential powers to pressure Judge Curiel.  Again as quoted in D.J.’s column:

“I am getting railroaded by a legal system, and frankly they should be ashamed,” Trump declared. “But we will come back in November. Wouldn’t that be wild if I am president and come back and do a civil case?”

This is banana republic stuff that is so entirely unacceptable in an American presidential candidate that words can’t properly capture the level of impropriety.

I desperately wanted to be able to vote for Trump because it is vitally important that Hillary Clinton not be able to fill the current vacancy of the swing seat on the Supreme Court with a leftist judicial activist.  But the Supreme Court vacancy isn’t the end-all and be-all issue of the day.  I cannot under any circumstances vote for a man who would usurp the civil liberties of millions of Americans, make dangerous knee-jerk decisions with his finger on the nuclear button, and abuse his powers for personal gain.  And as important as the Supreme Court vacancy is, I won’t allow Trump and his supporters to blackmail me with it into accepting the morally reprehensible.

For those who mindlessly repeat the mantra that a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Hillary, I ask you:  If David Duke were the nominee, would a failure to vote for him be a vote for the Democrat?  Would you actually vote for David Duke if he were the nominee?  Unfortunately, I’m afraid to know the answer to that question from many of my fellow Republicans.

No, Trump is not as virulently racist as David Duke (who did, in fact, win the Republican nomination for Governor of Louisiana back in the ’90s).  But Duke is not where we draw the line of acceptability in a candidate.  Trump has shown that he too is a bigot even if he isn’t as malicious about it as Duke.  And Trump has stated that he would actively work to curtail the civil rights of millions of Muslim-Americans if elected.  He now makes it clear that he believes that Mexican-Americans are a suspect class as well.  If you wouldn’t consider a vote against David Duke to be a vote for the Democrat, then you can’t consider my vote against Donald Trump to be a vote for Hillary Clinton.

I will vote neither for Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton.  I will vote, but I haven’t decided yet for whom.  The Gary Johnson-William Weld ticket is a possibility, although I disagree with many of their views, particularly on foreign policy.  If David French manages to get on the ballot, I will give him serious consideration as well.  And if I find I can’t support any candidate on the ballot, I’ll write in someone like Marco Rubio or Mitch Daniels.

I gave Donald Trump a fair chance to earn my vote – a chance that he didn’t really deserve after the disgusting campaign he ran throughout the primaries.  He promised that once he secured the nomination he would “act as presidential as anybody that’s ever been president other than the great Abraham Lincoln,” and I gave him a chance to show that he could keep that promise.  He has already demonstrated that he can’t.

Sometimes party loyalty demands too much.  Donald Trump cannot be entrusted with the powers of the presidency, and he will not get my vote.

Сейчас уже никто не берёт классический кредит, приходя в отделение банка. Это уже в далёком прошлом. Одним из главных достижений прогресса является возможность получать кредиты онлайн, что очень удобно и практично, а также выгодно кредиторам, так как теперь они могут ссудить деньги даже тем, у кого рядом нет филиала их организации, но есть интернет. http://credit-n.ru/zaymyi.html - это один из сайтов, где заёмщики могут заполнить заявку на получение кредита или микрозайма онлайн. Посетите его и оцените удобство взаимодействия с банками и мфо через сеть.